Haageocereus tenuis

Paul Hoxey (right) and Job Rosales with one of the clumps of
Haageocereus.

Haageocereus tenuisDate: 2001 December 15
Location: Lima, Peru

North of the city of Lima, not far from the Panamerican Highway,
Haageocereus tenuis grows in a very restricted area, threatened
by development of the land for chicken farms, or irrigation for sugar-cane
cultivation.

There is an article on this and another Haageocereus species
by the Peruvian cactus expert, Carlos Ostolaza, in the
British Cactus & Succulent Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3 (September 2000).

The flowers are nocturnal, lasting a single night, and so have not often been seen.
We took this short segment of stem along with us. One of the flowers
opened at night a day later, but had closed again well before morning despite
being kept in the dark.